as a man, a son, a brother, and proud Dad to an extraordinary daughter, who graduated from Wellesley College with honors on a full scholarship —- I was moved to tears watching our First Lady’s speech in New Hampshire yesterday.

Especially when she said : ” Everyday locker room talk is an insult to men everywhere. Strong men don’t need to put down women to lift themselves up.”

That city could desperately use someone with her ability to bring people of color and whites together, and she cares about education and community health care. And if she really wanted to be bold, Governor of Illinois.

Because a woman can only be president after her husband? Or because we really like political dynasties and want a small number of families to be president forever? Will Chelsea Clinton be old enough in 2032? When will Obama’s daughters be able to run?

Is the Democratic party really so pathetic that it only has two families with people worth electing to the presidency? What happened to diversity? If Clinton gets two terms and then Michelle Obama gets two after that, the period of 1988-2032 (44 years, nearly 1/5 of our country’s history by then) will have a total of three families serving as presidents. How could anyone possibly support that? Maybe we should just switch to a monarchy.

We rank dead last in competitive legislative elections. And the rest of you can lol at the UIP’s failure to break through all you want, but we need to do something to alleviate that issue. The UIP was not the vehicle, and this cycle was not the time to try it, but something has to change. I’ll have more thoughts on that after November 8 when we are paying attention to state politics again. But the change definitely can start at home.

I’ve seen more of those beautiful state than I ever expected too and learned a great deal about this process and myself. And I suspect the next iteration of the organization will be partnering with other reform minded people like Sen. Elridge. You don’t need a new party structure to try and pass sensible electoral process reforms and clean elections, but you do need an active citizenry. I’m worried we have a complacent one, and I am transitioning to teaching precisely to challenge the next generation to be active ones.

How the rules in MA require you to get a percentage of a vote in a statewide election, in a year when there aren’t any. I guess that explains the Green strategy of skipping the local races in favor of the bigs. Makes it a bit tough to sustain a 3rd party, and certainly entrenches the status quo.

I am strongly considering simply voting a straight ticket, based on government: Dem for every office where the job is in Washington; GOP for every job that isn’t, and a write-in for Montgomery Brewster for all the ones where they don’t.

Competition for the sake of competition isn’t particularly better. The most heat and light in this years race, so far, was the 2d Middlesex Primary where the most oft asked question was “just who does Leland Cheung think he is?” leading to a pretty substantial loss for him. I applaud that loss, and approve the re-election of Jehlen, but can’t escape the implications of the contradiction between what happened and what you say you want to happen.

I want Republicans and progressives to challenge the substantial number of conservative Democratic legislators. Progressives from the left, where they can follow the lead of Mike Connolly and socially moderate Republicans against the likes of Miceli and Garry. Those districts won’t elect progressives, but they could elect socially moderate Republicans who won’t vote to give DeLeo unlimited power.

You said that the CommonWealth was, quote “… dead last in competitive legislative elections. ” You did not qualify that competition. You only said we were last. I offered an example of a competition in the primary. You can’t dismiss the example because it didn’t conform to your wishes… and any future competition is going to involve challenges from a variety of directions.

And I welcomed the challenge and she beat him back since he incumbent was better. It forced her to earn it. Nothing wrong with that. I welcome contested races for every seat, even those for incumbents I support. I don’t see what your issue is.

Because a woman can only be president after her husband? Or because we really like political dynasties and want a small number of families to be president forever? Will Chelsea Clinton be old enough in 2032? When will Obama’s daughters be able to run?

… having to do with how we identify and choose the candidates we might support, or oppose.

Is the Democratic party really so pathetic that it only has two families with people worth electing to the presidency?

The question is how do we decide who is worth electing? At present, as far as I can tell, we don’t. At all. We wait for the media machinery to kick into gear and accept the candidates which that machinery spits out. Nor is this particular to the Dems: you might well decry the second Clinton to seek the office, but after having seen the third Bush make an attempt at the GOP nomination this year I don’t think it a problem of the Dems alone.

I think it’s a pretty passive way of ‘choosing.’ And it’s increasingly clear that those people who are truly good at the media game, that is to say those who navigate the machinery and come out on top, are often truly pathetic at the actual job: that which makes a good candidate is diverging from that which makes a good president. People are actually saying, with a straight face, that Hillary Clinton is both “the most qualified” and the “worst campaigner.” Those would be cleanly contradictory statements if the qualifications for the job were what the campaigns were about but, instead, it is a straight up admission that the actual campaigning for the job is completely divorced from the actual job.

Maybe we should just switch to a monarchy.

That would certainly solve the problem of not being able to choose well…

I don’t see either Michelle Obama or Chelsea Clinton as presidential material in their own rights, at least now. Who knows what the Obama girls might do. We should neither support not oppose dynasties just on the idea of a dynasty, but take each family member on his or her own merits like anyone else. Of course, that does sometimes mean acknowledging that certain families tend to collect experience.

The Philippines have had a few competing dynasties, part of the reason Duterte is popular was because he isn’t affiliated with any (directly). Very common in Latin America, Eastern Europe and even more developed democracies like Britain’s and France’s.

Considering we’ve only had two sons of Presidents become President, and one grandson become President, we seem to be doing pretty well. I like Joe Kennedy III and think he has done a much better job representing his district than his father did representing mine growing up. And the Roosevelt cousins are both on my top five presidents lists. The Kennedy brothers all served ably. And then there are the Bushes and Timiltys to consider in the negative…

I would prefer we not elect dynasties, but in this election I’d easily take the wife of the former president over any of her opponents. Even if she were running against a likable and comparatively sane Republican like Kasich. Clark or Moulton have my vote against Kennedy for a future Senate seat, mainly since I like their experience and issue positions better, and maybe a little bit so he doesn’t assume the seat is his birthright.

Churchill’s father was also a Lord and MP. Chamberlain’s father and brother were both MPs, the former being an LO. In France there is the Le Pen family and the current President succeeded his former partner as the Socialist nominee, there are the Milliband brothers in Labour, De Gaulle’s kids became Senators and his grandkids became MEPs. So yes, they have political dynasties too.